Who will UC Merced’s Grad Slam champion be?
Cheer on the finalists on April 8 and find out.
Graduate students from UC Merced’s three schools will take the stage to compete in the Graduate Division’s 10th Grad Slam finals.
You could almost say Edwin Shen was destined to become a bioengineer. His mother, a medical doctor, practices pathology in Northern California, and his father retired from a career as a mechanical engineer for medical device companies.
“I guess what I do is right in the middle of my parents’ occupations,” he said. “Bioengineering was something my dad recommended I try. I thought research might be something that aligned well with my personality. It turned out to be a perfect fit.”
UC Merced Professor Clarissa J. Nobile has been named a 2022 Innovation Fund investigator by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Nobile and University of Missouri Professor David G. Mendoza-Cózatl have formed one of six interdisciplinary teams chosen for the prestigious award.
The duo is combining expertise from Nobile’s research in microbial communities and Mendoza-Cózatl’s work in plant biology to study how plants and microbes interact in the context of iron uptake and utilization.
UC Merced is highlighting incoming first-year students for fall 2022 — a dynamic, diverse and accomplished cohort of new Bobcats.
Jordynn Lewis is excited to start her journey as a UC Merced Bobcat when the fall semester begins in August. The first-year student recently graduated from Holy Names High School in her hometown of Oakland.
Public Health doctoral student Sarah Alnahari was awarded a UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) Predoctoral Fellowship to continue her community-driven research examining tobacco use among Arab Americans in the San Joaquin Valley.
The TRDRP is an initiative created through tobacco taxes and administered by the Research Grants Program Office at the UC Office of the President.
Shaina Santa Cruz, a graduate student in the Public Health Graduate Program, was awarded the Central California Asian Pacific Women (CCAPW) scholarship.
Public health Ph.D. student Ryan Torres presented research at last month’s Mosquito and Vector Control Association of California Conference in San Diego that could be foundational for future mosquito-control efforts.
Chia Thao was a teenager when she arrived in Fresno with her family to begin a new life. She was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, where her Laotian parents had fled after the Vietnam War.
“Our parents brought a skillset to the U.S., found a home in the Central Valley and began farming,” Thao said. “This connected them back to their homeland.”
Over the years, she witnessed the challenges small-scale farmers faced and it prompted her research interests. Now, she is using her cultural knowledge of her community to help improve health outcomes.
The opportunity to participate in cutting-edge scientific research as an undergraduate is one of the most exciting aspects of a UC Merced education.
One of the best preparation opportunities for graduate school is to engage in research as an undergraduate, but at many universities, it’s not until you’re in graduate school that you conduct research.
